Politics and Policy With a Punch

Browsing Category : Economy

Yesterday, more than 500 food service workers at Facebook won union representation at the tech giant’s campus in Menlo Park, CA. The workers, who are employed by contractor Flagship Facility Services, are calling for increased wages to compete with skyrocketing rents and more affordable health benefits. These workers will join cafeteria workers at Intel, Cisco Systems, Agilent and Nvidia, who…

Bay 101 workers went on strike in the early hours of Friday morning and maintained a constant picket line in front of the 24-hour casino. While Bay 101 is putting the final touches on its shiny new building, many of its loyal employees are being left behind. The card room, which is owned by members of the prominent Bumb family,…

Last night, the Santa Clara City Council voted unanimously to enact a $15 minimum wage by 2019, three years before mandated by the State of California. Santa Clara joins Cupertino, Los Altos, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose and Sunnyvale in the first region-wide approach to raising the wage to $15 in the US, a concerted effort to ease…

Tomorrow, San Jose’s minimum wage is set to increase to $12, a $1.50 bump an hour for the City’s lowest paid workers. This increase is part of an effort that began in 2012 when San Jose residents voted to increase workers’ wages from $8 to $10. Then, in 2016, as surrounding cities were committing to raises wages at a rate…

The booming Silicon Valley economy hides the growing crisis of the “missing middle” – the increasing scarcity of middle-wage jobs that are accessible to the average person and can support a family in this high-cost region. At the same time the Silicon Valley labor movement is fighting to raise the floor and create more middle-wage jobs, unions are also working…

Yesterday, a new research report released by Working Partnerships USA, Cashing In on Renters, found that a family in Silicon Valley now needs to earn $113,040 to afford the average two-bedroom apartment, and that the number of “no cause” evictions has increased by 270 percent in the past five years. In addition, it reveals that large, non-San Jose based landlords…

Earlier this week, the City of Santa Clara moved one step closer to reaching a $15 minimum wage by 2019. Led by Vice Mayor Dominic Caserta, the City Council voted unanimously to spend 90 days conducting outreach to help determine its schedule of increases. The message from the people in the packed Council Chambers was clear: to reach $15 by…

The presidential election was a primal scream for good jobs, but many elected officials seem not to have heard it. It’s time for a simple, common sense reform to address the crying need for family-sustaining employment: Every public policy that involves employing people should create good jobs. Although direct government employment generally pays at least a living wage, the jobs…

Santa Clara County Report on ordinance to prevent discrimination against renters with Section 8 vouchers At the February 7, 2017 Board of Supervisors meeting, the County Counsel presented a recommended ordinance to ensure that all persons with the ability to pay for housing, whether through their own funds or using a subsidy such as Section 8, are considered for housing.…

Tonight, the Milpitas City Council voted 4 to 0 to raise its minimum wage to $15 by 2019, three years sooner than mandated by the State of California. Workers in the City will see their first raise in July of this year. Voting in support of $15 by 2019 were Council Members Marsha Grilli, Anthony Phan, Bob Nuñez and Mayor Rich Tran.…